AD-A130 386 EFFECTS OF BEHAVIORAL OBdECTIVES AND INSTRUCTIONS ON I/1LEARNING A CATEGORY TASK(U) NAVY PERSONNEL RESEARCH ANDDEVELOPMENT CENTER SAN DIEGO CA P J KONOSKE ET AL.

UNCLASSIFIED MAY 83 NPRDC-SR-83-33 F/G 5/9 NL

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MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHARTNATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS 19 A

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0 EFFECTS OF BEHAVIORAL OBJECTIVES ANDINSTRUCTIONS ON LEARNING A CATEGORY TASK

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NAVY PERSONNEL RESEARCHAND

CL. DEVELOPMENT CENTERC) San Diego,, California 92152

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NPRDC Special Report 83-33 May 1983

EFFECTS OF BEHAVIORAL 0B3ECTIVYES AND INSTRUCTIONIS ONLEARNING A CATEGORY TASK

Paula 3. KonoskeJohn A. Ellis

Reviewed byJohn D. Ford, Jr.

Accession For

Released by --James F. Kelly, Jr.- -

Commanding Officer D 1 4r~

Navy Personnel Research and Development Center S )

San Diego, Californla 92132 *E

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thngiving nonspecific behavioral objectives. The instructional implications are thatstudents should be given explicit instructions or behavioral objectives that use familiarterinology and consist of specific informaiton about the nature of the testing situationwhen learning from text.

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FFOREWORD

This effort was conducted under project ZROOO-01-042-06-01.01 (Enhancement ofInformation Acquisition). The purpose of this project is to provide a greater understand-ing of the effects of instructional strategies employing instructions and objectives onstudent study behaviors.

This report provides recommendations for writing instructions and behavioral objec-tives for instructional developers in the Instructional Program Development Centers andeducation specialists in Navy schools.

JAMES F. KELLY, JR. JAMES W. TWEEDDALECommanding Officer Technical Director

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SUMMARY

Problem

The Navy currently requires that students be given behavioral objectives before theytake instruction. Research has shown that performance increases sigificantly whenspecific behavioral objectives are used. An objective is specific when it is clear andsalient to the student, uses terminology familiar to the student, and consists of specificinformation about the nature of the testing situation. Navy behavioral objectives do notalways meet these criteria.

Objective

The purpose of this effort was to compare student performance in learning a categorytask when they were given either (1) a Navy behavioral objective, (2) the same Navyobjective revised to be more specific and to specify directly the test behavior required, or(3) special instructions. In the revised objective, the terminology was changed to make itmore appropriate and meaningful to the learner. The instructions included informationregarding the nature of the test, the type of material to be tested, and the best way tostudy the materials.

Method

Eighty-two Navy enlisted personnel were randomly assigned to four groups: a read-only control group, a standard Navy behavioral objective group, a revised behavioralobjective group, and an instructions group. The category task was a lesson on U.S. Navyradio call signs. After subjects had completed the lesson using experimental materialsappropriate for their group, they took a recall test and a classification test.

Findings

Results of analyses of variance computed on results of the recall and classificationtests showed a significant difference among the groups on test performance. The revisedbehavioral objective and the instructions groups recalled and classified better than did thestandard Navy behavioral objective and the read-only control groups.

Conclusions

These data Indicate that giving students explicit Instructions or behavioral objectivesthat have been revised so that they are clear to the student facilitates recall andclassification performance more than giving nonspecific behavioral objectives.

Recommendations

Students should be given specific Instructions or behavioral objectives that usefamiliar terminology and consist of specific Information about the nature of the testingsituation when learning from text.

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Page

INTRODUCTION .............................. I

Problem ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ... IBackgrou~nd ................................ 1

-Objective ............................................................ 2

METHOD............................................................... 2

Subjects and Materials.................................................. 2Procedure ............................................................ 3

RESULTS .............................................................. 3

CONCLUSIONS................... .............................. 4

RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................... 4

REFERENCES ..................................................... 5

DISTRIBUTION LIST .............................................. 7

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INTRODUCTION

Problem

The Navy currently requires that students be given behavioral objectives before theyread instruction. Research has shown that this practice is sometimes effective while, atother times, it is not. For example, Rothkopf and Kaplan (1972) found a significantincrease in performance when using specific rather than general behavioral objectives.An objective is specific when it is clear and salient to the student, uses terminologyfamiliar to the student, and consists of specific information about the nature of thetesting situation.

Behavioral objectives used in the Navy often do not meet these criteria because theyare written for one of two purposes: They can focus either on the behavior of theinstruction developer or on that of the student. Typically, behavioral objectives arewritten to provide guidance to the Navy developers regarding the instructional materials,rather than to provide the student with clues about the nature of the testing situation.

Background

Many experiments have investigated the effects of behavioral objectives on learning.Hartley and Davies (1976) and Lewis (1981) provide good sumiiary reviews. Some of thevariables that have been studied include (1) student awareness of and interest in thestated objective, (2) clarity, difficulty, and the number of objectives, (3) whether theobjectives should be inserted into texts before or after related instructional material, and(4) the frequency with which such insertions occur.

As indicated previously, Rothkopf and Kaplan (1972) found that performance in-creased when using specific behavioral objectives. Further, Huck and Long (1973)demonstrated a greater recall of prose when objectives are salient or explicit to theinstructional task than when they are not. They concluded that the explicitness of theobjectives helps the student use them as useful "advance organizers."

Duell (1974) provides some support for the notion that behavioral objectives areeffective because they serve as clues to the student regarding the nature of the testingsituation. She gave students detalled behavioral objectives that directed them to learnnames and definitions and found that students who received the objective performedbetter than those who did not. Duell hypothesized that objectives focus student studybehavior by setting off information needed when the learner is tested and by ensuring thatthe learner is aware of this relationship.

One problem with research in this area is that some studies employ objectives thatare more explicit or precise than others. Dalis (1970) underlined the importance of clarityof the behavioral objectives by a study in which he noted that students provided withprecisely stated, behaviorally-oriented objectives performed significantly better than didthose provided with either vaguely stated instructional objectives or short paragraphs ofinformation. Also, it is not always recognized that behavioral objectives themselves canvary considerably in clarity and that this can be a major factor in determining whether ornot they enhance relevant learning.

Another factor that may facilitate relevant learning is the difficulty level of thebehavioral objectives. In reviewing studies of the effects of behavioral objectives onlearning, Brown (1970) pointed out that the degree of difficulty of the objectives can

influence student performance. If the objective is extremely difficult or extremely easy,it is difficult to discriminate between the performance of students who were or were notprovided with the objective. It is possible that the degree of familiar terminology used inthe objective could influence the difficulty of the objective and the chances that thestudent will use them.

Objective

The purpose of this effort was to compare student performance in learning a categorytask when they were given either (1) a Navy behavioral objective, (2) that same Navyobjective revised to be more specific and to specify dii-ectly the test behavior required, or(3) special instructions. In the revised objective, the terminology was changed to make itmore appropriate and meaningful to the learner. The instructions included informationregarding the nature of the test, the type of material to be tested, and the best way tostudy the materials.

METH1OD

Subjects and Materials

Subjects were 82 Navy enlisted personnel who were randomly assigned to fourgroups- -a read-only control group, a Navy behavioral objective group, a revised be-havioral objective group, and an instructions group. The category task was a 972-wordlesson on Navy radio canl signs, which are used by radio stations to identify themselves(e.g., WABC or KCBA). The text of the lesson was a narrative description of each type ofcall sign. Two tests were developed: One requiring the student to recall the names anddefinitions of the call signs; and the second, to classify a list of 18 call signs.

The original and revised Navy behavioral objectives used in the study are presented inFigure 1.

The Navy Behavioral Objective

In this lesson, the student will be given a list of address designators that includes thefollowing types of call signst International U.S. Navy Ship, International U.S. NavyShore, Task Organization, Indefinite, and Voice.

The student will be able to recall the name and characteristics of each type of callsign address designator and be able to categorize each according to the type of call signit is.

The Revised Behavioral Objective:Upon completion of this lesson, the student will be able to classify any call sign

according to one of the following types- -International U.S. Navy Ship, International 'U.S. Navy Shore, Task Organization, Indefinite, Voice, or not a valid Navy call sign.

Upon completion of this lesson, thestudent will write from memory the names andcharacteristics of each of the following types of call signs:. International U.S. NavyShore, International U.S. Navy, Ship Indefinite, Task Organization, and Voice.

Figure 1. The Navy objective and the revised objective used in the study.

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Procedure

Subjects were given the experimental materials in booklets and allowed to workthrough them at their own pace. The read-only control group was given the call signsmaterial; the Navy behavioral objective group, the Navy objective and the call signsmaterial; the revised behavioral objective group, the revised objective and the call signsmaterial; and the instruction group, the same information as the revised behavioralobjective group plus information regarding the best way to study material.

After completing the materials, all subjects were given the written recall test,followed by the classification test. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) were used to comparegroup performance on the tests.

RESULTS

ANOVA results showed that the main effect for groups was significant for the recalltest (F(3,78) = 3.52, p < .02) and for the classification test (F(3,78) = 3.59, p < .02). Meansand standard deviations for each group on test performance are presented in Table 1.

Table I

Means and Standard Deviations for all Groups on the Tests

Recall Test Classification TestGroup N M SD M SD

Read-only control 20 4.55 2.30 7.55 4.04Objective 19 4.52 1.67 7.78 4.10Revised objective 20 6.45 2.99 11.65 5.02Instructions 23 6.21 2.72 9.91 4.87

Note. The maximum scores on the recall and classification tests were 10 and 18respctively.4

Planned orthogonal comparisons of the group means of scores on the recall testrevealed that the revised behavioral objective and the instructions groups differed fromthe read-only control and the Navy behavioral objective groups tW78) = 3.71, p < .01), butnot f rom each other.

The planned orthogonal comparisons of the group means of scores on the classif ica-tion test revealed the same pattern of results as did the comparisons on the recall test.The revised behavioral objective and the Instruction groups did niot differ from each otherbut they did differ significantly f rom the read-only control and the Navy behavioralobjective groups (t(79 = 3.41, p < .01). These data Indicate that giving specific behavioralobjectives or specific Instructions Is more effective for recall and classification per-formance than giving nonspecific behavioral objectives.

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CONCLUSIONS

Results support the hypothesis that giving students a specific behavioral objective orexplicit instructions is more effective than giving a nonspecific behavioral objective onlearning a category task. Information regarding the nature of the tests, the type ofinformation to be tested, and the best way to process the information is more effectivethan nonspecific behavioral objectives in focusing attention and study behaviors oncategory material.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Students should be given specific behavioral objectives or explicit instructions thatutilize the terminology familiar to the student and consist of specific information aboutthe nature of the testing situation when learning from text.

REFERENCES

Brown, 3. L. The effects of revealing instructional objectives on the learning of politicalconcepts and attitudes in two role playing games (Unpublished doctoral dissertation).University of California, 1970, Dissertation Abstracts International, 1971, 31, 5263.

Dais, G. T. Effect of precise objectives upon student achievement in health education.The Journal of Experimental Education, 1970, 39, 20-23.

Duell, 0. K. Effect of type of objective, level of text questions, and the judgedimportance of tested materials upon post-test performance. Journal of EducationalPsychology, 1974, 66, 225-232.

Hartley, 3., & Davies, 1. K. Preinstructional strategies: The role of pretests, behavioralobjectives, overviews, and advance organizers. Review of Educational Research, 1976,46, 239-265.

Huck, S. W., & Long, S. D. The effect of behavioral objectives on student achievement.Journal of Experimental Education, 1973, 42, 40-41.

Lewis, 3. M. Answers to twenty questions on behavioral objectives. EducationalTechnology, 1981, March, 27-31.

Rothkopf, E. Z., & Kaplan, R. Exploration of the effect of density and specificity ofinstructional objectives on learning from text. Journal of Educational Psychology,1972, 63, 295-302.

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